Will China Invade Taiwan In 2023? Read the full story

Here’s why China won’t invade Taiwan anytime soon. Read the full article ahead.

After the arrival of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen in the United States last week and held a brief meeting in California with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, China predictably responded with a show of force in the Taiwan Strait. After three days of military drills, naval vessels, fighter jets, and even an aircraft carrier carried out what Beijing called ‘stimulated precision attacks’ that serve as a dress rehearsal for a military encirclement of the island state that might one day lead to an invasion. Once the exercises were complete, China’s military declared itself prepared at any time to ‘smash Taiwanese independence separatism and external meddling in any way.

Will China Invade Taiwan In 2023?

Surprisingly, the Western media have covered this story as a potential emergency. Particularly, it came when U.S-China relations are bad and getting worse. China’s President Xi Jinping has gone further than his predecessors in declaring that Taiwan will be returned to the People’s Republic of China by any means necessary, and President Joe Biden has said multiple times that the United States would come to Taiwan’s aid if China attacked. Though representatives of his own administration have walked back some of his past comments.

It would be a foolish decision to ignore China’s provocations, for several reasons. Accidents can arise with this much hostile hardware moving through narrow lanes of air and water. Therefore, accidents can increase the risk of direct armed conflict between the two most powerful countries on Earth which should be taken seriously. Though China will not show Taiwan, the U.S., or anyone else exactly how it would launch a full blockage or invasion of Taiwan, China’s armed forces find it very valuable to practice. After all, Chinese troops haven’t faced a shooting war since a brief conflict with Vietnam in 1979. Taiwan will hold national elections next year finally. Though China’s latest intimidation may not lead to military conflict anytime soon. Though, it may have an effect on how Taiwan’s voters imagine the future.

Concluding it all, the actual risk of imminent Chinese military action against Taiwan remains low. Beijing always flexes military muscle when the highest-level U.S. Taiwanese officials meet face to face. Yet, though Speaker McCarthy’s visit with Taiwan’s president marks the highest-level U.S.-Taiwan meeting on US soil since 1979, China’s latest response was less militarily threatening than its reaction to last summer’s visit to Taiwan by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi- and Beijing is well aware that Washington will probably see it.

There’s also the critical issue of semiconductors. About 90 percent of the world’s most sophisticated computer chips are made in Taiwan. China, the U.S., and others are working as quickly as possible to lessen the risk of economic catastrophe that would result if that production were dramatically slowed or even prohibited, but self-sufficiency in chip production is years away for every country. China is loath to risk a conflict that would leave its economy without access to the 21st century’s most important economic resource.

One day, China may invade Taiwan, triggering a war with global implications. But that day isn’t soon. When and if it does, the timing will be determined by China’s leader, not as the result of any diplomatic provocation, but by his own calculation of benefit and cost. Currently, it’s still possible to hope that cooler heads can one day find a diplomatic solution to avert a war that would have disastrous implications far beyond Asia.

Thank you for being a patient reader.